HEH: “Hillary is America’s First Wife, a sour, sexless, disapproving presence eager to spend the next eight years telling us all how we are failing to measure up to her exacting standards.”

WHY I WANT Carly Fiorina as my next President.

Margaret Thatcher isn't available....

HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN focused on bringing down Wall Street by accepting as much of their money as possible.

ROBOTS ARE TAKING OVER: Human beings are just too damn expensive.

MR. OBAMA'S TWO TERMS really are a case study in how a president can make Jimmy Carter look competent by comparison.

FROM MY EMAIL: This came to me through the intertubes claiming to be from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. That claim is false, but the topics (healthcare, poverty, debt, gun control, welfare, education, religion, and class warfare) pretty well describe the Left's tactical agenda.

1) Healthcare – control healthcare and you control the people.

2) Poverty – increase the poverty level as high as possible. Poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3) Debt – increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you can increase taxes, and thus produce more poverty.

4) Gun Control – remove the ability of the people to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are can create a police state.

5) Welfare – take control of every aspect (food, housing, and income) of the peoples' lives.

6) Education – take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school.

7) Religion – remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.

8) Class Warfare – divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

The Left's 'social justice' state is a totalitarian state.

HILLARY CLINTON isn't America's only option for our first woman president. Carly Fiorina, the other woman, is the better option.

Easier on the eyes, too....

THE INVERSE MIDAS TOUCH: Everything Obama touches turns to crap.

HEAVY RAIN: washs away part of Interstate 10 in Southern California. Now for another 39 days and 39 nights to finish the job.

TRUMP APPEALS TO RACISTS. I'm surprised to find that I'm a racist. I'm not surprised to find that Gary Johnson is an idiot.

IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: some 1,800 illegal immigrants released by "sanctuary cities" last year were charged with 7,500 new crimes, including rape and child sex abuse.

But other than that, everything is copacetic.

YOUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS AT WORK: The National Institutes of Health has spent a total of $3.5 million to research why 75 percent of lesbians are obese.

As you read the article, note that there are no results described, just a 'health concern' (for homosexual males) that requires another $700,000 grant.

FROM MY EXPERIENCE, the same is true of progressives.

BREAKING: 54-year old man irritated by the first hard question he's ever heard in the first job he's ever had.

PLANET HILLARY:

WHO ARE THE RACISTS? Washington Post dredges up 'Willie Horton' narrative to offset the Democrats' "sanctuary" damage.

Any lie to support the narrative they're pushing....

HILLARY: I have an economic plan. (I just don't know what's in it yet.)

MIDNIGHT RAIDS, SECRET SUBPOENAS: IRS' Lois Lerner close friends with leader who targeted Scott Walker.

Lerner and Kevin Kennedy, director of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board ... traded emails on campaign finance, politics, and personal matters between 2011 and 2013.... That was the same time frame the IRS increased its harassment of conservative groups and Wisconsin prosecutors conducted a secret John Doe probe of Walker's allies, raising the troubling question of whether they coordinated their investigations.

And that's what happens when you vote for Big Government: claques of wannabe tyrants cheering each other on in their rush to control every facet of your lives.

KARL MARX: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. We should be so lucky....

FROM MY EMAIL:

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move."

"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?

"That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"

St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire Life."

"Where's Hillary Clinton's clock?" asked the man.

"Hillary's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

Amusing (for conservatives like me), but what is discomfiting is that you can replace 'Hillary' with the name of any current politician - left or right- and the joke will still ring true.

OBAMA JUST CEMENTED IN HIS PLACE as the worst president in American history. And, I fear, the first (only?) President whose term in office lead directly to the first nuclear war in history.

Michael Ramirez has it exactly right.

POWERLINE: Settled science, or selective ignorance? As global warming climate change is a creature of the left, I tend to think 'settled ignorance' is the correct phrase.

USING STUDENTS AS A PASS-THRU TO ADMINISTRATOR POCKETBOOKS: Student aid mostly raises the price of college tuition.

ANOTHER DAY, another fraud. Leftists: they're nothing if not consistent.

SIX OF ONE, a half-dozen of the other.

JUST IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED: Debate over rebel flag widens to include all symbols of Confederacy. Told'ja so.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS: If the left is going to play the role of self-appointed flag police, they shouldn’t be surprised if someone points out this as well.

Swords cut both ways, and the right is beginning to learn how to use them....

I ACTUALLY LIKE Gov. Nikki Haley, but she made a boneheaded move when she decided to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State Capitol grounds.

I have no particular problem with removing it to a more appropriate historical site, but the move should have been done quietly, and several months after the murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston.

Here's why: the immediacy of calling for removal gave the racist bigots of the progressive Left license to declare any display of any Confederate symbol, artifact, or historical item as proof of racial animus on the part of the holder. And that is utter nonsense.

Nevertheless, it is rapidly becoming the conventional wisdom, as evidenced by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's almost immediate decision to remove the Confederate flag from Virginia's personalized licence plates as "unnecessarily divisive and hurtful to too many of our people".

Well, okay. Then shouldn't the following personalized license plates also be banned as 'unnecessarily divisive and hurtful'?

Choose Life (offends pro-choice liberals)
Civil War (offends historical illiterates)
Don't Tread on Me (offends liberals and otherTea Party haters;
  full disclosure: my cars wear them proudly)
In God We Trust (offends atheists)
National Rifle Association (offends gun controllers)
Order of the Eastern Star (offends non-Masons)
Tobacco Heritage (publicize smoking? Heaven forfend!)
Trust Women Respect Choice (offends pro-life conservatives)
Washington Redskins (offends liberals; Native Americans apparently unaffected)

Heinlein's 'crazy years' are a bit late, but off to a roaring start as the progressives 'reality world' becomes more and more untethered to the mother ship.

THE DONALD AND BERNIE SHOW: it's what happens when the political establishment ignores the voters.

RANDOM THOUGHT: The road to bad outcomes is paved with good intentions.

BECAUSE THEY'RE WHITE: Why white people will always be racists.

BECAUSE THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS THE SOCIALIST PARTY? "Why is Bernie Sanders, who purports to be an Independent Socialist, running for the Democratic nomination?"

LIBERALS SHOULD BE CAREFUL WHAT THEY WISH FOR. And conservatives should make sure they get it -- good and hard!

THIS IS WHY they're called 'twits'.

LEMONADE SOCIALLISM: a civil rights issue, or should we just stick with tar & feathers? I vote for both -- send 'em to civil court in a coat of tar & feathers....

BLUER THAN BLUE: “If you want to see jaw-dropping inequality and racial segregation, just compare NW to SE D.C.”

D.C. is, of course, Washington D.C.; NW is 'northwest', the gentry liberal part of the city, and SE is - you guessed it - 'southeast', the city's slum area. Washington D.C. has been a Democrat plantation since, well, forever and as such a shining example of the progressives' utopia.

NO MORE SHOPPING HERE: Walmart to ‘melt’ class rings bearing Confederate flag rather than complete orders.

I can get my blue jeans, T-shirts, groceries and ammunition elsewhere....

RECKON WITH THIS: "If t[T]here has [n]ever been a smaller man or bigger jerk than Barack Obama holding the office of president, we need to know now." Fixed.

TWEET OF THE DAY

Megyn Kelly
@megynkelly

Funeral services were held tonight for Kate Steinle, but where was the @WhiteHouse? #KellyFile pic.twitter.com/NLucR8jPaz

She wasn't black....

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS RUN AMOK (STILL): Three navigation coordination points above Palm Beach International Airport that had been named in honor of Donald J. Trump will be renamed, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday.

The Left is full of sore losers. Nah. Just losers.

AUGMENTED REALITY is dangerous. But that won't stop the knotheads.

OBAMACARE'S FRUIT: Insurers merge, premiums rise.

Unexpectedly.

SORRY TO BURST YOUR BUBBLE, but those Scandinavian socialist welfare states aren't.

NEAT: Drones to deliver medicine & supplies to Wise Remote Area Medical clinic.

We drive through Bristol nearly every trip we make to Georgia, and every couple of years, stop to see the Trail of the Lonesome Pine outdoor drama in nearby Big Stone Gap.

JEFF JACOBY: It'll take more than tanks to keep Putin from the Baltics.

It'll take a new U.S. President.

NOEMIE EMERY: It remains to be seen whether Obama's legacy will be healthcare or his destruction of his own party.

My vote is for the (well-deserved) destruction of the Democrat party. One can hope that a viable center-left party (Jim Webb, anyone?) will arise from the ashes.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME: Oregon pays for teen sex-changes without consent.

Progressive totalitarianism must be stopped. Stopped dead.

HEH: Sanctuary cities are making a comeback.

JIM WEBB ANNOUNCES CANDIDACY FOR PRESIDENT. This from my email. It's long, but worth a read if only to reassure ourselves that there are still a few sensible Democrats left in America.

After many months of thought, deliberation and discussion, I have decided to seek the office of the Presidency of the United States.

I understand the odds, particularly in today’s political climate where fair debate is so often drowned out by huge sums of money. I know that more than one candidate in this process intends to raise at least a billion dollars – some estimates run as high as two billion dollars – in direct and indirect financial support. Highly paid political consultants are working to shape the “messaging” of every major candidate.

But our country needs a fresh approach to solving the problems that confront us and too often unnecessarily divide us. We need to shake the hold of these shadow elites on our political process. Our elected officials need to get back to the basics of good governance and to remember that their principal obligations are to protect our national interests abroad and to ensure a level playing field here at home, especially for those who otherwise have no voice in the corridors of power. And at the same time our fellow Americans need proven, experienced leadership that can be trusted to move us forward from a new President’s first days in office.

I believe I can offer both.

We all want the American dream – unending opportunity at the top if you put things together and you make it, absolute fairness along the way, and a safety net underneath you if you fall on hard times or suffer disability or as you reach your retirement years. That’s the American Trifecta -- opportunity, fairness, and security. It’s why people from all over the world do whatever they can to come here. And it’s why the rest of us love this country and our way of life.

More than anything else, Americans want their leaders to preserve that dream, for all of us and not for just a few.

We need a President who understands leadership, who has a proven record of actual accomplishments, who can bring about bipartisan solutions, who can bring people from both sides to the table to get things done. And that leader needs to gather the great minds of our society and bring them into a new Administration and give them direction and ask them to help us solve the monumental challenges that face us.

What should you ask for in your next President?

First, there is no greater responsibility for our President than the vital role of Commander in Chief.

I have spent my entire life in and around the American military. I grew up in a military family. I fought as a Marine rifle platoon and company commander on the battlefields of Vietnam. I spent five years in the Pentagon, four of them as an assistant secretary of defense and secretary of the navy. I covered our military on many journalistic assignments, including the Marine Corps deployment to Beirut in 1983 and as an “embed” reporter in Afghanistan in 2004. And while in the Senate I spent six years on both the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.

Let me assure you, as President I would not have urged an invasion of Iraq, nor as a Senator would I have voted to authorize it. I warned in writing five months before that invasion that we do not belong as an occupying power in that part of the world, and that this invasion would be a strategic blunder of historic proportions, empowering Iran and in the long run China, unleashing sectarian violence inside Iraq and turning our troops into terrorist targets.

I would not have been the President who used military force in Libya during the Arab Spring. I warned repeatedly that this use of our military did not meet the test of a grave national security interest, that it would have negative implications for the entire region, and that no such action should take place without the approval of the Congress. The leadership in the Congress at that time not only failed to give us a vote; they did not even allow a formal debate, and the President acted unilaterally. The attack in Benghazi was inevitable in some form or another, as was the continuing chaos and the dissemination of large numbers of weapons from Qaddafi’s armories to terrorist units throughout the region.

And today I would not be the President to sign an executive order establishing a long-tem relationship with Iran if it accepts Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. This Administration and those in Congress should be looking very hard at the actual terms of this agreement, which we on the outside cannot yet see or evaluate. They should also be questioning whether it is appropriate for such an important agreement to be signed without the specific, prior approval of the Congress.

On the other hand, I would make it clear to our friends and our potential adversaries that we will retain vigorous relationships with our treaty partners and our allies, and that we will meet and defeat any international terrorist movement that threatens our national security. We will work with our NATO allies to restore stability in Europe, and with our friends in the Middle East, particularly Israel, our most stable partner and friend in the region, to reduce the cycle of violence and turmoil in that part of the world.

I have been warning for many years that the United States is the essential guarantor of stability in East and Southeast Asia, and that China’s increasingly aggressive military posture in that region threatens our own national security. If I am elected as your President I can promise you that we will not accept China’s continuing military expansion and intimidation in such areas as the South China Sea. Nor will we be so fearful of our economic reliance on trade with China that we fail to protect our citizens in such matters as cybersecurity, where it is becoming increasingly apparent that the personal information of millions of Americans have been penetrated and breached, apparently by Chinese intelligence agencies.

Second, on domestic issues I would ask you to look at the results we were able to obtain during my time in the Senate, when many were throwing their hands up in the air and lamenting that little could be done when the government had become so paralyzed.

I spoke loudly and consistently on the issue of economic fairness, and made this issue the principal focus when I was asked to deliver the Democratic response to President Bush’s State of the Union Address in 2007.

Despite the warnings of political advisers that being portrayed as soft on crime was political suicide in American politics, from the beginning of my campaign for the US Senate and throughout my tenure, I spoke long and loud about the need to fix our broken criminal justice system. We pushed this issue directly from my Senate office, meeting with more than 100 stake holders from across the political spectrum, taking the hits and the criticism along the way and eventually bringing the need for criminal justice reform out of the shadows and into the mainstream of political debate.

I wrote and introduced the Post-911 GI Bill on my first day in office. Some said I hadn’t earned the right to introduce such broad legislation as a brand-new freshman Senator. The Bush Administration opposed the bill until the day it was signed. But we built a bipartisan coalition – a prototype for how things can indeed be accomplished in Washington – and within 16 months we passed the finest, most comprehensive GI Bill in history, which now has allowed more than a million of our Post-911 veterans a first class shot at the future.

Third, once we have brought together many of the great minds and leaders of America, what else should we be asking them to do?

Let’s work to restore true economic fairness in this great country, starting with finding the right formula for growing our national economy while making our tax laws more balanced and increasing the negotiating leverage of our working people. Our doors will be open to everyone who wants to work with us to find real, lasting solutions, from either party and from all segments of the American economy. But our goal will be to increase the financial stability of the American work force.

Let’s work to rebuild the infrastructure of this country vigorously and thoroughly, including roads, bridges, water systems, schools, alternate energy systems, and, vitally, the electrical grid through which all of our energy sources flow. A better infrastructure guarantees the increase of our inherent national wealth – it’s a “capital” investment in all of us – and it brings jobs that cannot be exported.

Let’s put a priority on fixing our educational system, and in the process giving our young people the priorities in our society and the future that they deserve. Not long ago a high school senior made a comment that still gives me pause every time I think of it. She said, “I’m not afraid of fighting for a cause. I’m afraid I won’t find a cause worth fighting for.”

Let’s give our younger people a cause worth fighting for. Let’s clean out the manure-filled stables of a political system that has become characterized by greed. Let’s rebuild an educational system that gives everyone a fair chance. A democracy is only as strong as the promise it offers its young citizens through the public education system.

When it comes to education in America we are looking at three challenges, which could actually intersect and become opportunities. The first is the benefit we can get through Pre-K programs that would allow less-privileged children to begin socialization and education at an earlier age. The second is the huge student loan debt that is hanging over the heads of so many of our talented young people who must mortgage their futures in order to have one. And the third is the reality that about 25 percent of the young people in this country do not even finish high school.

During my time in the Senate we worked hard to create second-chance programs for those who had not finished high school, financed in part by employer tax credits combined with programs in local community colleges. If I am elected President we can make these programs happen. We could also find a way for those who have finished their education to complete a period of public service, with loan forgiveness as an incentive for that service.

Let’s work together to fix our broken criminal justice system. This isn’t a political issue, it’s a leadership issue. It’s costing us billions of dollars. It’s wasting lives, often beginning at a very early age, creating career criminals rather than curing them. It’s not making our neighborhoods safer. We can fix this, strengthen our country, and make our people safer in their own homes and communities. It won’t happen overnight, but it won’t ever happen if we don’t start.

And let’s work toward bringing the complex issue of immigration reform to a solution that respects the integrity of our legal traditions while also recognizing the practical realities of a system that has been paralyzed by partisan debate. The holistic leadership approach I instituted nine years ago regarding criminal justice reform offers a prototype that can be used on the multifaceted challenges of immigration reform.

With every one of these recommendations I can make you two promises. The first is that every endeavor will be based on the premise that has been the foundation of our society from the day the United States Constitution was signed: that we are a nation of laws, not of specially privileged people, and that our greatest strength comes from the power of our multicultural heritage. And the second is that I mean what I say, that if I make a promise I will keep it, and that outside my faith and my family, my greatest love will always be for this amazing country that for more than 200 years has given so many people the opportunity to have a good life, raise a family, live in freedom, and achieve their dreams.

Let’s work together to make America an even better place.

I don't expect a Democrat can -- or will -- win the Presidency in 2016, but should that unlikely event occur, Webb is the one Democrat I could live with.

THE ULTIMATE DEMOCRAT.

BREAKING: Science verifies common knowledge. Cats like to have their heads scratched.

HILLARY CAMPAIGN UPDATE:

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: What Obama has taught us.

Obama also has reminded taught us that “big government” is by nature incompetent and scary....

Try a thought experiment about changes in government. Say “the ______ under Obama” and then fill in the blank with what follows: IRS, VA, NSA, GSA, EPA, TSA, DHS, ICE, Secret Service, NASA. Have these agencies “changed” and do we have more “hope” because of their evolution? Are any of these bureaucracies more transparent or efficient than in 2008? Do we associate their directors with skilled and honest leadership? Or do we see these alphabet soups corrupted by cronyism and politics, immune from audit and accountability, led by incompetents, and now mostly social-welfare organizations bent on patronage and redistributive engineering?

Change. It's not always for the best.

IT'S A SHITHOLE: The deep meaning of San Francisco.

You can see where the limousine has become the indispensable handmaiden of the city’s limousine liberals. It helps insulate them from the stench as they travel to and from the office.

Progressive Nirvana.

AND FINALLY: God Bless the USA.

FIGHT PC CENSORS: Practice free speech on July 4th.

IT'S INDEPENDENCE DAY: "Restore the Republic; revolt against socialism."

TWO REASONS why the Democrat party should be renamed the Dumbocrat party:

More at PowerLine's Week in Pictures.

EXPLAINING the Declaration of Independence. In the Washington Post, of all places....

A REMINDER:



The link is here.

THE FOURTH OF JULY is Independence Day, not Fireworks Day. Here are some reminders.

"SUGAR BABIES" in education. Follow the link, and read the comments. My favorite is this one: "Just because one prostitute is victimized by another doesn't make the first one virtuous."

SUGARY DRINKS cause 184 thousand deaths worldwide annually. That sounds like something terrible until you realize that it's just 0.3% of the 58 million deaths in a worldwide population of 7 billion.

So -- if you're unlucky enough to die this year, it's 99.7% certain that it won't be a sugary soda that kills you.